brewer, covering the big news from coast to coast. the big story today, casey anthony will be out of jail in less than one week. moments ago, we learned the florida mother acquitted of murdering her own 2-year-old daughter will be released next wednesday, july 13th. on tuesday, she was convicted on all counts of lying to police. this morning, judge belvin perry announced what that would cost her. >> i will sentence you to one year in the orange county jail, imposing a $1,000 fine on each count. all four counts to run consecutive to each other, giving you credit for the time that you have previously served. >> that credit amounted to just over 1,000 days. let's go live now to orlando.

nbc is outside the courthouse with the very latest on what has happened this morning. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, richard. that was six days short of the worst case scenario for those protesters that gathered around this morning outside the courtroom. certainly not comforting, not even six weeks or six months, not even six years is anywhere near what they wanted or what they consider would be just for caylee. however, i got to tell you, i'm surprised that i'm not seeing people protesting anymore. we saw around 100 people this morning, give or take. they're all gone now. i'm sure in less than a week, in six days, we'll see at least some type of animosity for which i can only imagine that casey anthony must be protected at all times after this. >> take us back to what happened this morning as we watch some of the video. casey could be seen smiling and playing with her hair. some might say that's disturbing imagery because of her daughter being dead. >> reporter: well, because her

sentence, regardless of what judge perry decided of the credit given to her, it was nowhere near what she could have faced if she had, of course, been convicted. now, her worst problem at this time is not those six days, not the $4,000 fine. her worst problem is the potential bearing of the court costs. she might hold the burden, this is what the prosecution is trying to do, saying we invested a great deal of resources, potentially, obviously i'm not a legal expert, but we'll have those to tell us if those could amount to $1 million or more. who knows what it cost not only the investigation by the authorities, but prosecutors throughout the case. they want her to pay somehow. on the other hand, we can only imagine how much casey anthony can get from selling her story on a book, perhaps a movie of her life. we heard from media experts and publicists right and left that she can get offered even millions of dollars. how big that problem is to her

at this point, time will tell. >> a lot of people will continue to watch that. what a stark difference outside the courthouse there. lilia, watching avery quiet outside of the courthouse today. before handing down casey anthony's sentence, judge belvin perry explained the reasoning behind what he was about to do. listen to this. >> as a result of those four separate and distinct lies, law enforcement expended a great deal of time, energy and manpower looking for young caylee marie anthony. >> very deliberate here. joining me now from orlando, former florida circuit court judge, alex ferrer, host of "judge alex." thank you for your time today. you just listened to what belvin perry said, the judge there, before he laid down the sentence. what do you think of his

decision today? it seemed extremely deliberate. >> i have no problem with it at all. before he announced the sentence, i said i can certainly see a perspective that would go either way. i could see judge perry saying somebody who lied to the police, i typically wouldn't give them four years so i'm not going to do it just because you have been acquitted of murder because it would be vindictive and punishing her for the murders she was acquitted of. i can also see him saying these lies were not garden variety lies of yes, officer, i was home when actually i was out burglarizing the store. these were lies that mobilized hundreds of police officers to look for a little girl, thousands of volunteers, and cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars because everybody was searching for the girl she insisted had been kidnapped when all along, she knew that she was dead. i could see judge perry saying that warrants the maximum penalty. that's the route he took and i certainly don't disagree with him at all. >> here is more sound from what judge perry said earlier. >> all four counts of providing false information to a law

enforcement officer were one continuous criminal act with a single intent. as such, each false statement separately charged violates double jeopardy and must be reduced to one conviction. >> okay. actually, that was not from judge perry. that was the call for the double jeopardy, basically making the argument against the consecutive serving of those different sentences. what did you think about that? did judge perry make the right decision in this? >> absolutely. i would have agreed with the defense, had all those lies been consecutive in the same interview with the police officer where she just told one lie and then another and then another. it would all be the same act and as a result, it would not warrant separate counts. however, in the same day, she had separate interviews with the police. in each of those interviews, she would tell a lie, the police would run out to act on it, come back and question her about it, she would tell them another lie. those were all separate acts and those all account for separate charges against her, so judge perry i believe made the right decision. >> not agreeing with that plea from the defense here. also, there's the opportunity as

you know, being a judge yourself, that we will often hear some personal commentary weaved into the comments being made by a judge as they're laying down the sentence here. do you believe that judge perry lost an opportunity to say what he really thought? >> no, i think judge perry is a very deliberate-minded judge. he does what he says and he means what he does, but he's not going to get up there and just pontificate and grandstand for any reason. this is a very clear-cut case. she lied to the police. i think it was more serious than average lies. he sentenced her accordingly and he's not going to be one to showboat. >> certainly underneath this microscope of the world watching the case, it would be something everybody would be taking note of. judge alex, thank you so much. >> always a pleasure. turning to the battle over the nation's debt, a meeting at the white house is still under way at this moment, according to "washington post" report. president obama is about to touch that third rail, putting

social security, medicaid and medicare on the table if the republicans agree to some form of tax hikes. so far, republicans are just not into that. here's gop house majority leader eric cantor on "morning joe." >> we're not for raising taxes. that's not the right thing to do when you've got a sputtering economy and so many people in america out of work. >> now, according to nbc's political unit, the three options under consideration at this moment, first off, a small approach. that includes a trillion in cuts and a short-term deal. then there's a second opportunity, a medium sized deal that cuts $2.5 million. the third option here, the deal with a $4 trillion deficit reduction. those are the three options that we understand that are out there right now. kristen welker is at the white house. what is the white house saying about the reports i was just mentioning that social security, medicare and medicaid could be on the table here? >> reporter: well, white house press secretary jay carney just released a statement a short

time ago saying there is no news. the white house's stance is essentially the president has long said he would support small cuts to those entitlement programs that you mentioned, to social security, medicare and medicaid, as long as it didn't include an overhaul of those entitlement programs. the white house is saying look, there's really nothing new here, we would be open to some small changes that would make those entitlement programs more efficient. having said that, some folks on the hill tell me that there is a scenario by which there would be some structural changes and that that scenario is potentially going to be discussed during these talks today. we'll have to see. what we can tell you is that the president is expected to really ramp up his efforts to get a big deal done, to try to get at least $4 trillion in cuts over the next ten years. this meeting began just about an hour ago, so we are all waiting for the congressional leaders to come out and hopefully get an update. richard? >> of the three options you were just discussing, is there any indication here that the republicans might agree to any of them at this moment?

>> reporter: well, it's murky right now. the big sticking point has been taxes. president obama, the democrats saying they would like to see a roll-back in tax breaks for wealthy americans, for big corporations like the oil and gas companies. republicans have typically said they wouldn't support anything that looks like a tax hike. however, recently, we have seen a little bit of wiggle room begin to open up here. here's what house speaker john boehner had to say just a short while ago. take a listen. >> we believe that comprehensive tax reform, both on the corporate side and personal side, would make america more competitive, help create jobs in our country and it's something that is under discussion. >> reporter: so again, he said it's under discussion. what exactly does that mean, we don't know at this point in time. we'll have to wait and see. again, we're expecting this meeting to wrap up hopefully within the half hour so we can get a bit of an update here. >> we are working up against the clock here.

it's august 2nd. some say we have to have a deal by next week or the week after. when do we expect to hear something from what's happening in this meeting today? >> reporter: well, again, richard, we're expecting them to come out within the half hour, within the hour, but as you say, all sides are incredibly aware of that august 2nd deadline and they say to meet that august 2nd deadline, they really have to have a deal by the 22nd of this month so that they can get it scored by the cbo, then sell it to all the members of congress. >> a lot ahead for them. thank you so much. the number of americans filing for unemployment benefits dropped by 14,000 last week to the lowest level in seven weeks, well ahead of estimates. but not enough to cut into the unemployment rate. applications have topped 400,000 for about three months. that's a sign that the job market has weakened since the beginning of the year. june unemployment numbers, very key numbers, the monthly numbers coming out tomorrow. officials at yellowstone national park say a man hiking with his wife was mauled to death by a grizzly bear. it's the park's first fatal

grizzly attack since 1986. the couple was hiking in the park's back country and apparently surprised a female bear and her cubs. joining me live from toronto is animal planet's large predator expert. dave, we always hate to hear stories about this. you are very familiar with them, unfortunately. when you look at the past, how rare is this deadly grizzly attack that we saw today? >> you know, when you consider how many people are sharing space with grizzly bears, this is very, very rare. it's something, it's more than a chance in a million. however, as you notice, the trend is increasing. there are more attacks starting to happen and that's based on more people sharing space and more bears being protected. >> they do not become more accustomed to humans even, for instance, in yellowstone park, there are about 600 of them and with all the tourists there, they don't become more accustomed to them? >> they do become more accustomed but unfortunately, with a place like yellowstone, it is a wild space. as accustomed as the bears are,

there are still some specific rules that those bears will follow because they are wild animals. unfortunately, for this poor gentleman and his wife, they came upon a bear that just felt the need to protects its cubs. when a grizzly bear protects her cubs -- >> what's another one of those rules that grizzly bears follow that you're talking about? >> you know, grizzly bears will attack for very few reasons. mostly grizzly bears are attacking to protect something, whether territory, food or their cubs. lot of times, you'll find black bears will attack predatorially where they're looking for a meal but that's rare as well. doing that, there are ways to keep yourself safe. carry pepper spray, carry bear bangers, carry a bear bell and in those cases, you are a little more prepared for running into a bear. >> in the boy scouts they told us make a lot of noise, wherever you're going. if you see a baby cub, run the other way. in this case, just to drill down on the details -- >> don't do that. don't run the other way. never run from a bear. never, ever run from a bear.

it's an old wives' tale. stand your ground, make yourself look big, clap your hands. when it looks like it may get aggressive or may turn into an attack, then in the case of a grizzly bear, lie flat and play dead. >> so i'm lucky is what you're telling me. the wife in this case was running. the wife was running. she dropped to the ground so she basically did what you just told us not to do. the bear picked her up by the backpack, reportedly is what happened, then dropped her on the ground. is this common? should she consider herself lucky here? >> yes, of course she should consider herself lucky in a terrible unfortunate incident. her running basically, the bear spent some time with the gentleman which was a bigger threat to those cubs, because it was a male and the bear would see that. by her laying flat on her stomach, that's basically submitting, showing herself no threat to those cubs. mom just picked her up, shook her around and left her, assuming that that wasn't going to be a problem for her cubs. in all the time that mom's doing this attacking, she's already

told her cubs to run. so you've got a specific amount of time where mom feels the cubs have got enough distance from the threat. >> dave, thank you. >> thank you. students in california could soon be learning a different kind of history in school. things are getting worse for the british tabloid accused of hacking phones as well. you won't believe whose phones they reportedly tapped now. first, a look at how wall street is doing at the moment. you look at the numbers, up almost 90 points. we will take that. this because of the jobs report that's seen positive in terms of what they think will happen tomorrow. my doctor told me calcium

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we're hearing first-hand those terrifying moments in midair when part of the roof

ripped off -- rather, ripped open on a southwest plane in april. that flight had just left phoenix when the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing when the hole caused a rapid decompression in the passenger cabin. here's that pilot. >> we've lost the cabin. we're starting down. we need to get to the airport. >> are you able to land at blythe or would you want to go to palm springs? >> let's make a turn and -- how far away are we from yuma right now? >> yuma is at your 3:00 position and 5-0 miles. >> the pilot landed the plane safely in yuma, arizona. there were no serious injuries. oil from the ruptured pipeline in montana has now spread as far as 80 miles downstream, reaching farmland and fishing grounds in north dakota. critics have blamed the environmental agency and exxonmobil, the pipeline operator, for their slow response to the spill last week. the man known as clark

rockefeller is in a california court today to face charges in connection with the 1985 cold case. his landlord and his wife disappeared over 25 years ago and the landlord remains were found in 1994. the phony heir, who is actually a german national, faces one count of murder. he is currently serving up to five years in a massachusetts prison for kidnapping his daughter. get ready for wedding bells to ring on july 24th in new york city. mayor michael bloomberg announced the city clerk's offices will open specially on that sunday, the first day new york's gay marriage law goes into effect. the clerk is expecting it to be a very busy day. prominent gay figures in history could soon play a bigger role in california classrooms. the fair education act is heading to governor jerry brown's desk after the state assembly passed the bill on tuesday. if enacted, the law would take in effect in january, requiring schools to teach all grade levels of the historical contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

joining me live from san francisco is professor ardell thomas, chair of lgbt studies at city college of san francisco. thank you for being here today. thank you for your time. >> thank you, richard. >> why is this so important? >> well, it's important because as much complexity as we can bring to history is important, like the biggest picture possible for students. i think we've seen this when women's history had been left out, women's accomplishments, people of color, and now this new measure will ensure that lgbt people as well as people with disabilities will be covered in history books. >> why do you support it? as we look at this legislation, you have given me some idea of what the main purpose behind it and what it is for, but might it make it also stand out too much? >> actually, i have an example that i could give you. when i'm teaching my classes, on

the first day, i will ask how many people have heard of dr. martin luther king. and everybody in the classroom raises their hands, including students who i have who have only been in the united states two weeks. then i ask and how many of you have heard of bayard restin. i get out of a class of 45 students, maybe two or three. he was actually martin luther king's right hand man in many ways during the civil rights movement but particularly, he was the organizer of the 1963 march on washington and is pictured with dr. king when you see the famous "i have a dream" speech. he is in the photo towards the left-hand side of dr. king. and he's incredibly important because during the civil rights movement and the african-american leaders of the

civil rights movement discussing how can we make the biggest impact for this march on washington, they discussed restin and they discussed his being gay. he was out of the closet and they knew that in particular, white conservatives were going to use homophobic tactics to try and say let's, you know, to scare the african-american civil rights leaders into not using restin to organize it. and the african-american civil rights community had deep discussions about this and decided no, we need the best person for this job and it's restin. >> so they stood up for him and continued to -- >> absolutely. >> i want to move to something else. an important story you do bring up. some critics, since you were mentioning that, concerned women for america say that this required curriculum might confuse children. what do you think? >> well, i think first of all, that we don't give children

nearly enough credit for their intellectual capacity at school. and i think that many of these arguments may also have been used when looking at, you know, what are the deeper complexities of say native american history in this country. we have often had, you know, the thanksgiving story and i think there was concern well, should we make it more complicated and in order for us to really understand our history and where we've been and where we're going, as much of a full picture as possible what is we need to give our children. they'll be able to decide what seems important to them and what doesn't over time. it also will give families an opportunity to discuss the rich, rich history of all people we have in the united states. >> ardel thomas, thank you so much. have a very good day. >> thank you. space shuttle "atlantis"

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miami police responding to the scene of a car break-in get quite a shock here. it was all caught on camera. not only had the suspect already been caught, he was naked. the owner chased down the 17-year-old suspect, who apparently decided that stripping off his clothes might help him escape. it didn't work. ole, ole. the annual running of the bulls in spain started this morning with thousands of people making the 900 yard dash down the streets of pamplona.

officials saying it was a clean run today, just a handful of people were injured with minor scrapes and bruises. the whole thing lasts just two and a half minutes. why do these people do this? it will happen again tomorrow morning. mitt romney is leading the candidates in the money race. why his party is concerned. breaking news out of london. one of the biggest british tabloids will soon be out of business. how the phone hacking scandal brought this company down. my doctor told me calcium is best absorbed in small continuous amounts. only one calcium supplement does that in one daily dose. new citracal slow release... continuously releases calcium plus d for the efficient absorption my body needs. citracal. new newtons fruit thins. real cranberries and delicious cranberry citrus oat...

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plead guilty to any sort of charges, despite a quote, constructive meeting with prosecutors yesterday. julian assange will not be telling all in a memoir here. his million dollar plus book deal fell through. he's reportedly concerned it could give ammunition to prosecutors. harry potter and the deathly hallows 2 premieres in london today. it is the eighth and final movie in the series. breaking news for you. the british tabloid "news of the world" is shutting down. the move comes here following allegations that the paper hacked into cell phones of celebrities, news makers and even crime victims. rupert murdoch's son james, who heads the newspaper's european operations, says the 168-year-old paper will publish its last edition on sunday. nbc's mike taibbi is live in london. as we get this news in, what are you hearing about the decision to close down this "news of the world"? >> reporter: it's a shock.

a lot of people have been telling me in the last few minutes when the news came over the wire, nobody saw this coming. there were two inquiries ordered yesterday. this has been a huge story but nobody saw this result this soon. something had to happen. there was a lot of talk about having the former editor, rebecca brooks, let go in some way. she's now a key executive for rupert murdoch but she was on watch at the time that most of the egregious, allegedly egregious hacking incidents took place. you referred to the hacking of the phone numbers of relatives of crime victims, murder victims, that sort of thing. the relatives of soldiers slain in iraq and afghanistan also allegedly hacked. that's the thing about this story. it's one thing to say that celebrities and athletes and politicians' numbers were hacked. they are not particularly sympathetic figures for the general public. but when you talk about members of the general public, just people, just victims, people grieving over the recent knowledge that a loved one has been killed, that's something that everybody on all sides of

the aisle have called appalling and deplorable and unacceptable. the statement by james murdoch today, i just had a chance to read it through. it's a long, perhaps 1500 word statement. in it, he says the good things that the "news of the world" does, this is the largest english language circulation paper in the world, the seventh biggest in terms of circulation newspaper in the world, but he says the good things that the paper does have been sullied by behavior that was wrong. indeed, he writes in recent allegations are true, that behavior was inhuman and has no place in our company. the "news of the world" is in the business of holding others to account but it failed when it came to itself. james murdoch talks about representations that were made to the public and to parliament, et cetera, that all turned out to be untrue. he talked about payments that were made out of a compensation fund to alleged victims of the hacking. some of those payments in the seven figure range, which he says were wrong and regrettable. he says in the end, this is the thing that's shocking to everybody, this sunday will be the last issue of the "news of

the world." the last issue of one of the linchpins of the murdoch media empire. the inquiries ordered by parliament won't stop and there is a clamor on all sides of the aisle for something additional to happen as a result of the investigations that are now ongoing. this has been an extraordinary story in great britain with implications for a worldwide media empire. >> 168 years coming to an end. breaking news with mike taibbi. thank you so much. mixed reviews for president obama's first-ever twitter town hall. during yesterday's hour-long event, the president took about 17 questions from users all over the country. most were about jobs and the budget, including this one from house speaker john boehner. boehner asking quote, after embarking on a record spending binge that's left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs? >> obviously, john's the speaker of the house. he's a republican and so this is a slightly skewed question.

but what he's right about is that we have not seen fast enough job growth relative to the need. we haven't gotten the kind of cooperation that i'd like to see on some of those ideas and initiatives but i'm just going to keep on trying and eventually, i'm sure the speaker will see the light. >> kim is business editor of the times-picayune in new orleans. she was part of the team that picked the presidential tweet questions for the news conference. thanks for joining us. as we look at what the critics are saying here, they're saying great idea, bad execution. in fact, here's a quote from today's chicago tribune that says the real twitter is unorchestrated, free-form, and silly. obama's use of it was slick but wasn't really twitter. that was according to megan from the chicago tribune. what do you think here? how did it work out?

>> i think i can understand where people are coming from. one of the challenges was that there were thousands, hundreds of thousands of tweets coming in. the curators and i were retweeting questions we thought were among the better ones. but even among all the ones that we sent up, only a handful got picked. so it was much different than me or you, richard, sitting down with president obama and being able to ask a direct line of questioning. it was lots of questions, lots of questions being sorted through and no one person, no one of us being able to control which ones actually got to the president's attention. >> one of the goals here is to take social media, which connects people in different ways as we all know very well nowadays, and in this case, to perhaps bring new eyeballs to politics, new interest. do you think that worked? >> i think it did. i know a couple of the other curators and i were a little disappointed that john boehner ended up getting a question in,

because he's someone that would have access to president obama on a very regular basis. but i do think that it was interesting as a curator to watch all the questions coming in from people of all walks of life, people who -- one of my followers is a dentist in harvey and he put up a question. it didn't get asked of the president but it was interesting to see just all kinds of people actually putting their thoughts down on twitter about the economy. and that just from my standpoint was kind of interesting to watch. it was interesting to see what people were wondering about and asking about. >> some of those things they were asking about, just the 17 questions that were selected by you as well as the other individuals, jobs, budget, taxes, education, housing, jobs sticking at the top of that. many of the questions were preselected, at least at the beginning. it wasn't until the later portion that you actually took live questions. why was that? >> well, i think people started submitting questions, i noticed the first questions coming tuesday afternoon, a good 24

hours before the event. so people across america were putting in questions and i think twitter was gradually beginning to -- i think twitter was watching the key words in those tweets and was trying to find some questions to send in that were representative of lots of questions. so that's why there were a couple jobs questions, for example, because so many people were asking about jobs. i think in that process, some of those early questions that came in like tuesday night were among the first that were actually aired before obama. then i noticed later on in the hour-long forum, we began to see tweets that had come in actually during the forum. so i think the fact that it started so early, people started submitting questions in a good 24 hours -- >> lot of interest. >> yeah. it kind of, the tweets that were aired ran from 24 hours earlier to ten minutes before. >> one thing is a lot of interest perhaps for twitter as they go for ipo after this. it will help them, perhaps.

>> good deal for them. >> kim, thank you. hollywood preparing to welcome two more stars, the duke and duchess of cambridge. this past year alone there was a 93% increase in cyber attacks. in financial transactions... on devices... in social interactions... and applications in the cloud. some companies are worried. some, not so much. thanks to a network that secures it all and knows what to keep in, and what to keep out. outsmart the threats. see how at cisco.com cisco.

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and help stop further joint damage with humira. coming up next, the president wants a big deal and sooner rather than later. but will the two sides compromise on taxes and entitlements? we'll ask white house communications director dan pfeiffer. plus, chuck schumer, and paul ryan, chris van hollen for the democrats on what's going on on both sides of the aisle. and we have the end of an era. we talk to a former nasa administrator as america's space shuttle program comes to an end. now to the 2012 presidential race. michele bachmann is out with her first iowa campaign ad. here it is. >> as a sdeendent of generations

of iowans, i was born and raised in waterloo. as a mom of five, a foster parent and former tax lawyer, now a small business job creator, i know that we can't keep spending money that we don't have. that's why i fought against the wasteful bailout, against the stimulus. i will not vote to increase the debt ceiling. >> the latest new hampshire polls show bachmann is gaining on romney in the granite state. romney with 35%, bachmann at 12%, getting an eight-point jump from 4% before. but she's still above ron paul as well as giuliani, perry coming in at 4%, pawlenty and palin right behind them. a half million dollar haul -- $18.5 million haul is what romney had in the last quarter but that was short of expectations. mark walsh is a democratic strategist, co-host of "left

jab." ron christie is a republican strategist who worked for both presidents bush. ron, let's start with you as we take a look at those numbers. is he losing steam? trying to raise money in london at the moment. wouldn't he have already got what he can get at this moment when you take a look at fund-raising? >> good afternoon, richard. i think actually governor romney is in remarkably strong shape. if you look at the $18.5 million he collected in this last quarter, this is money that's going to be spent only for the primary election. the distinction between a lot of the other candidates that are raising money for the primary and the general, the $18.5 million romney raised was just for the primary. he has several more months to go, several more fund-raisers to attend. if people don't look beneath the surface they don't realize how strong the numbers actually are. >> it is early going. mark, giuliani and perry, going back to that poll, two noncandidates polling higher than pawlenty and huntsman at the moment. why haven't we seen settling in the group as of yet?

>> let the craziness begin. this is a wacky time for the republican party. mainly because there's really no front-runner that is able to crystallize what the traditional republican party is all about. i would argue that a lot of what's going on is bluntly a lot of media coverage like we're talking about right now, that's bringing some names to the fore that probably have no chance. i would suggest that michele bachmann, the more america learns about her, the more her numbers will plummet. i think mitt romney and others will start to raise more money. this is a weird time when people are focusing money on a very low populous state called iowa, when these events go on when people choose their candidate. the republican party is moving around new hampshire and iowa to make sure a larger group of people are able to get their opinions known but the craziness time in iowa is once again coming on us. i think it will be a crazy, wild time to watch. >> when we take a look at this here, ron, he mentioned michele bachmann and she is gaining in the polls here. not spending a lot of time there

in the northeast, in new hampshire, but still getting that nice bump. why do you see that happening? >> i think a lot of republicans from across the country were really introduced to michele bachmann for the first time when they watched the first presidential debate. there's another debate coming up on august 11th. i think a lot of people now are starting to pay attention. mark's right, this is still the silly season in politics. we're still so far away, nearly 17 months away from the general election. i think republican voters are now taking a stronger look at the candidates and really assessing their strengths and weaknesses. michele bachmann is very smart, very telegenic. she presents herself well and that will appeal to people. >> given these numbers we have been looking into today, does this show a need for rick perry to get into this? >> i beg for rick perry to get into this race. he is the guy i want to run against, him and michele bachmann. >> you're going to run, too? >> republicans, i want you to have a perry-bachmann ticket. that's what i want our guys to

run against. >> thank you for the conversation today. mark walsh, ron christie. back to yesterday's twitter town hall. president obama admitting he would have done some things differently, especially when it comes to the recession. take a listen to what he said. >> one would have been to explain to the american people that it was going to take awhile for us to get out of this. i think even i did not realize the magnitude because most economists didn't realize the magnitude of the recession. >> meanwhile, a top advisor to tim pawlenty's campaign is apologizing to michele bachmann. in an interview with the hill, she says she has hometown appeal, she has ideological appeal and i hate to say it but she's got a little sex appeal, too. well, weber, the former co-chair of pawlenty's political action committee, apologized, saying it was inappropriate and i'm sorry. my doctor told me calcium

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we are less than 24 hours away from the final space shuttle launch. blastoff for the "atlantis" is set for just before 11:30 a.m. eastern time tomorrow. it is the 135th flight of the program that's lasted three decades. as the curtain comes down on nasa's technological achievement, some space experts are asking was it worth it? john logston is from the space shuttle institute. you wrote an article "was the space shuttle a mistake." what's your answer to that? >> i think in terms of building the program around it for 30 years and choosing to build back in 1972 the most ambitious, the most challenging version of the shuttle that was considered, i think those were mistakes. the vehicle itself is a technological marvel and has done a lot of very, very impressive things. but the policy framework within

which it's operated i think was mistaken. >> drill down more on the policy framework. how would it need to change or what needed to change back then so it was a good decision? >> at the time that the shuttle was decided upon in '71 and early '72, there were a lot of variations of a vehicle that could get into space and come back with some degree of reusability. some of them were much simpler, not as technologically challenging as the one that was ultimately built. a more revolutionary path that had moved up to this vehicle would have been a better choice back then. once we built it, you know, we found out rather quickly it was going to be very expensive and very delicate to operate. it should have been replaced. >> you write the cost has been over $200 billion. the estimates back in 1972 were

much different than that, $5.15 billion for development and $10.5 billion for operating costs. very different than what we are seeing in terms of actual costs according to what you are saying, but could we have built the international space station with any other vehicle than this? >> no. one of the reasons the shuttle design was what it turned out to be was even back in '71 and '72, nasa was figuring on using it for building the space station once they could convince the president and turned out to be president reagan, to approve that station. the two programs were joined at the hip from the very start. >> so as we look forward to the next generation, are we set to make the right decisions? do we have the right policy framework? >> no. there's more uncertainty now than i've seen in 45 years of careful observation of the program. >> what do we need to do? what's the right answer? >> well, i think we need some presidential leadership, some clarity, some setting out a path

for the future that makes sense, and then choosing the right vehicles, the right space craft, to pursue that path rather than choosing the vehicle first and then figuring out how to use it. >> professor, thank you so much for your time today. professor at george washington university space policy institute. there's a 70% chance of rain tomorrow, by the way, so if the shuttle "atlantis" launch is a go, tune in to msnbc for live coverage on that. newlyweds prince william and the duchess of cambridge are winding down their tour of canada. tomorrow, they are heading our way. hollywood is gearing up for a royal welcome. we have a lot coming up. thanks for watching. see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. in the west. a lot of news today. the budget talks have concluded for the day. we'll have the latest. president obama going for a bigger debt limit deal.

can he succeed? we have ryan, schumer, van hollen and pfeiffer. plus the wildfires, the floods and other disasters. casey anthony gets credit for good behavior. she will walk free next week.

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right now on "andrea mitchell reports." deal or no deal. democrats and republicans just finishing a meeting at the white house, putting all their cards on the table. we are expecting to hear from the president any minute now. what's in play? by all accounts, social security, medicare and taxes. a big development moments before the meeting began. speaker of the house john boehner opened the door, changing the tax code. >> we believe that comprehensive tax reform both on the corporate side and personal side